WOZA Had Wanted Change In Zimbabwe

For over
four years members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), a non-partisan,
non-violent peace activist organization, have been subjected to harassment,
arrests and imprisonment by Robert Mugabe’s government. The arrest continued
even after the March 29th elections and the days leading to the June
27th run-off.

Annie Sibanda, spokeswoman for the
organization told Nightline’s Akwei Thompson that, together with the rest of
Zimbabwe, members of WOZA were determined to take part in the March 29th
election and to “exercise our rights, as citizens, to chose our government.”
She said they were delighted to hear the results that the "people had spoken and
that they had voted for change."

However, Sibanda said, the
increase in violence by Zanu-PF right after the March election was a clear
indication that the June 27th run off was not going to be
free and fair. “From early May, we were
demonstrating against the political violence in the country and calling for the
election to be postponed, or put off and for SADC and the AU to in the
intervene so that the situation in the country would be normalized...”

Asked how significant it
would have been for WOZA and Zimbabwe had Tsvangirai stayed in the race to give
a chance to win the election, Sibanda said “I don’t there would have been any
scenario where Morgan Tsvangirai would have been allowed a chance to win the
run-off given the situation on the round.”